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“It’s a sin to change the words of Apollius.” Gabe leaned over and braced his hands on the table, peering at the books like he could make them confess something.
“Sounds like Apollius should’ve chosen His words a bit more carefully, then,” Lore muttered.
Gabe straightened. “Hmm.”
“So if it was meant to be singular,” Lore said, “that would mean that instead of all the Arceneaux line having the ability to channel Spiritum, it’d be only one of them.”
Malcolm nodded. “That’s the same conclusion Anton came to.”
The mention of the Priest Exalted made the air heavier.
The librarian stared at them a moment, dark eyes glinting with curiosity. When he spoke, it was quiet, and with the air of something decided. “Do you want to see the most recent book we acquired? I had to send for it from Grantere, after August specifically requested that Anton find it.”
“Malcolm—” Gabe started, but the other man held up a gloved hand.
“Things have been rotten for a while, Gabe.” The teasing excitement he’d had while talking about translations was gone now; Malcolm sounded resigned. Sad, like someone coming to terms with a fact they’d long suspected but tried to ignore. “Anton and August are clearly keeping secrets, and Anton trapped you in the Citadel when he knew it was the last place you wanted to be. Between that and the research he’s doing—not just about Spiritum, but about Mortem and how it can be manipulated—I’m not convinced he’s who I want to be following.”
Gabe was stricken silent. They’d all skirted close to heresy in here, but Malcolm’s words came the closest of them all.
“Not that I necessarily want to be following you two on whatever harebrained quest you’re on, either,” Malcolm said wryly, “but I have a… a feeling, I guess. Something is changing, and I want to be part of changing it.”
Neither Lore nor Gabe knew what to say to that. But after a moment, Gabe reached out and clapped the other man on the shoulder. He kept silent, and looked troubled, almost afraid.
Malcolm returned the gesture, then turned to the cabinet where the rarest volumes were kept. “Let me find that book. It might shed some light.”
Next to Lore, Gabe crossed his arms, face drawn and pensive. Lore tapped her fingers on the tabletop. “You said Anton was looking into Mortem, too? What about it?”
“Awful stuff,” Malcolm said softly. “Reports on the necromancers, back in the first years after the Godsfall. Apparently, the ability to raise the dead wasn’t about how much Mortem they could channel, but how they manipulated the Mortem that they could. And others worked in pairs—one to raise the dead, the other to control them, through some complicated channeling ritual.”
Lore frowned and twisted at one of the ribbons on her sleeve. She’d worn a new gown today, a powder-blue number with short puffs of fabric covering her shoulders, the ribbons that gathered the sleeve trailing down the backs of her arms. They itched.
Malcolm frowned, opening and closing another drawer. “Dammit,” he muttered under his breath. “It’s on transubstantiation, so I would definitely have put it in this drawer, not the one up top…”
“Would you happen to be looking for Theories on the Physical Practice of Transubstantiation by Etienne D’Arcy?” Bastian asked. “Because I have it right here.”
Lore’s head whipped around so fast her neck creaked.
The Sun Prince of Auverraine stood just inside the door to the library, one shoulder leaning against the jamb. He held a large leather-bound book in his hands, absently riffling the pages back and forth, mindless of their age and value. A guileless half smile lit one corner of his mouth, but his eyes glittered darkly in the dim light.
Malcolm recovered first, the sight of a book being manhandled taking precedence over everything else. “Careful!” He rushed to Bastian and took the book from his hands, too delicately to be snatching, but close. “This thing is at least two hundred years old.”
“Explains the smell.” Bastian relinquished the book without protest, tucking his hands in his pockets and strolling casually to the table where Gabe and Lore sat. Lore eyed him like a mouse would a cat, but Gabe just tensed up, rigid as the glass in front of them.
“Normally, I would be upset that you two didn’t invite me along,” Bastian said, apparently unconcerned with Malcolm’s presence. “But as it stands, I had my own research to conduct. Thus the book.”
“How did you get in here to take it?” The rush of saving the book from the prince’s flippant hands was wearing off; Malcolm didn’t look nervous, exactly, but his face had drawn into wary lines. “The door is always locked—”
“Ignoring the fact that I can get any key I please,” Bastian interrupted, “I wasn’t the one who took the book from the library. I found it in my father’s study.” He cocked his head toward Malcolm. “And if you think I was mistreating it, you should’ve seen what he was doing. He’d left it open and weighted down the pages with a wineglass to keep it that way.”
“Bleeding God.” Malcolm hurriedly flipped the book over in his hands to inspect the spine.
Bastian turned back to Gabe and Lore, his eyes sliding from one of them to the other. “Now,” he murmured, “do either of you know why my father was studying transubstantiation? I doubt he could even spell it, so I assume Anton gave him the book, which means it probably has something to do with the villages, and possibly with trying to frame me.”
“Are you sure you want to do this here?” Lore kept her voice low and jerked her chin toward Malcolm, currently preoccupied with cataloging book damage.
“Oh, right.” Bastian straightened, turned to the librarian. “Hate to do this, Malcolm, but needs must: Gabe and Lore are working for me, now, because it seems my father and my uncle want to blame me for the deaths of the villages and frame me as a Kirythean spy. Congratulations, you’re part of it now. Breathe a word and all three of you can catch the next ship to the Burnt Isles.”
Malcolm froze, the book at an awkward angle in his hands. Blinked. “Well,” he said after a moment. “Thanks for telling me.”
